The Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands are two
British dependencies in the northern part of the Caribbean. The
Cayman Islands consist of three islands: Grand Cayman, Little
Cayman, and Cayman Brac. The capital is George Town, on Grand
Cayman. The Turks and Caicos Islands consist of some forty islands
forming the southeastern end of the Bahamas archipelago. The
capital is Cockburn Town, on Grand Turk Island. English is the
official language of both territories.

Christopher Columbus sighted the Caymans during his 1503
voyage, naming them "Las Tortugas" because of the large number of
turtles he found there. By 1530 the islands were known as the
Caymanus, a name that may have derived from confusion between the
iguana, which is found on the islands, and the alligator
(cayman in Spanish). Ponce de Leon is generally believed to
have discovered the Turks and Caicos in 1512, but some scholars
still speculate that Columbus may have landed on one of the
islands, probably East Caicos or Grand Turk Island, on his great
voyage in 1492.

No serious effort was made to settle either group of islands in
the first decades after European discovery. Ships of various
nations stopped at the Caymans to get food, mainly turtles. Both
groups of islands became haunts for pirates, particularly the Turks
and Caicos. From there, raiders attacked Spanish galleons sailing
from Cuba, Hispaniola (the island containing present-day Haiti and
the Dominican Republic), and Central America en route to Europe.
The earliest European settlers in both territories were a mixture
of buccaneers, shipwrecked sailors, and debtors.

Spain held early control over the Caymans, but the islands were
ceded by Spain to the English crown in 1670 under the terms of the
Treaty of Madrid. The first English settlement took place in 1734
after the first land grant. After 1734 most of the colonists came
from Jamaica, and the Caymans became a dependency of Jamaica. The
islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman were settled in 1833 by
several families from Grand Cayman, but no administrative
connection existed until a justice of the peace arrived on Cayman
Brac in 1877. Sailing ships continued to visit the islands into the
nineteenth century, but later steamships stopped rarely. Life in
the Caymans was generally quiet until the middle of the twentieth
century.

The Turks and Caicos, located closer to colonial territories
held by various European powers, had a more colorful early history.
The first permanent settlers were salt collectors from Bermuda who
arrived on Grand Turk Island in 1678. They successfully defended
their settlement against a Bahamian annexation attempt in 1700, a
Spanish invasion in 1710, and a French invasion in 1763. The French
succeeded with their second attempt, in 1764, and exiled the
Bermudians to Haiti. By the beginning of the nineteenth century,
however, the British had regained control and made the Turks and
Caicos part of the Bahamas. In 1848 the islands separated from the
Bahamas and briefly had their own president and council until
Jamaica annexed them in 1874 and made them a Jamaican dependency.

Both the Caymans and the Turks and Caicos remained formal
Jamaican dependencies until 1959, and the governor of Jamaica held
responsibility for them until Jamaican independence in 1962. At
that point, both territories became separate British dependencies.
The Caymans created a separate constitution in 1959, and a British
administrator was appointed for the Caymans in 1962 (the title was
changed to governor in 1971). The 1959 Constitution was revised in
1972. The Turks and Caicos received their own governor in 1972 and
established a new constitution in 1976.

In the late 1980s, the Cayman Islands were politically stable
and highly prosperous by Caribbean standards. Tourism and offshore
banking (see Glossary) and financial services, the latter made
possible by the islands' tax-haven status, were the two main
industries.

Although not as prosperous as the Cayman Islands, the Turks and
Caicos Islands also relied on tourism and offshore financial
services as mainstays of their economy. Economic similarities
between the two British dependencies, however, did not carry over
to the political sphere; politics in the Turks and Caicos was much
more contentious. In 1985 these islands were rocked by a major drug
scandal, when the chief minister, the development minister of
commerce and development, and another member of the Legislative
Council were arrested in Miami in a "sting" operation run by the
United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The operation
was carried out with the full knowledge and consent of the British
governor on the Turks and Caicos and the British government in
London. The governor has taken a strong stand against drug
smuggling and alleged corruption, a position that has helped
restore the confidence of foreign investors.

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